Danger seen in Lucas Heights waste

Storage facilities at Australia's Lucas Heights reactor have reached full capacity and a “crisis shipment” to the United States is needed, according to documents obtained by Greenpeace.

Nuclear campaigner Jean McSorley said the hazards of such a shipment have been greatly increased by the International Maritime Organisation's decision in early November to allow nuclear waste cargoes to be carried on passenger vehicles and freighters.

The new code allows the transport of irradiated nuclear fuel, plutonium and high-level radioactive waste on general cargo vessels, passenger ships or ferries. Only in the case of the largest shipments will these materials be excluded from passenger ships in preference for ships with enhanced safety features.

It allows nuclear cargoes containing as much as twice the radioactivity that was released during the Chernobyl disaster to be carried on passenger ships. Ships which are not specifically built for nuclear material carriage are not covered by private insurance companies.

The United States has proposed taking a “crisis shipment” of 114 spent nuclear fuel rods from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation's Lucas Heights reactor. Australian government representatives told the United States Department of Energy the shipment would mean that no new “expensive dry storage facility” would need to be built at Lucas Heights.

McSorley points out this admission is in direct contradiction of ANSTO's public position that storage facilities at Lucas Heights will be adequate until 1998.

Greenpeace is calling on shipping and transport unions, and local councils on the possible transport route, to oppose the shipment. Greenpeace will also be contacting South Pacific Forum nations which have expressed concern over radioactive cargoes travelling through their waters, to inform them of the proposed passage.

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